The button, the wall and the myth of nations

"Mr. Kim may be partly motivated by an intense need to roll back sanctions that, by all accounts, have begun to bite."

Whoa and ouch. This was my wakeup paragraph. I was sitting at Starbucks, reading the New York Times, feeling confusing old emotions wash over me on the first day of the New Year, when suddenly these words hit me like a sucker punch: The sanctions against North Korea "have begun to bite"?

Compare this throw-away fragment of international news with a brief analysis of the effect of U.S. and global sanctions against North Korea by the